SU Squirrel Investigates Rise in Valentine's Day Hate Mail
February 17 – While Valentine’s Day has a tradition of sharing romantic cards and letters, several students have reported quite the opposite. Hate mail has appeared in multiple mailboxes disguised as Valentine’s Day cards, all from a brand-new online service that appeared recently on campus.
A local online business known as Anti-Grams seems to have come out of nowhere in the past few weeks, offering to send ironic and hateful messages to any address. To use the service, all anyone has to do is go on the website and choose one of their affordable packages. For $10.99, you can send a custom poem with the recipient’s name worked into it, probably for malicious purposes. For $15.99, you can sent your victim a bouquet of rusty barbed wire, and for the Big Buyers Package, which is $25.99, you can mail an entire hive of Africanized bess.
The Squirrel sat down with SU Senior Terry Restrepo, the founder of Anti-Grams, to find out why he started his unique business.
S: Terry, what inspired you to come up with Anti-Grams?
TR: Well, you know, Valentine’s Day is just a load of bull-crap, you know? It’s a corporate holiday created for the sole purpose of selling greeting cards and candy. Like Christmas. I don’t think it’s right for the American people to have to subscribe to this corporate nonsense.
S: Interesting. Now, you write all of the Anti-Grams yourself, correct?
TR: That is correct. Man, I don’t want to brag, but I make some pretty sick poetry. I’ve been thinking about making Creative Writing my major for about three years now.
S: We’d like to discuss a few of your cards, if you don’t mind.
TR: Sure, man, go ahead.
S: I’m reading directly from the card here: “Roses are red, violets are blue, you’re bad in bed, go fuck yourself Karen.” That last line has us at The Squirrel intrigued, since the person that received this particular Anti-Gram was not named Karen. Your thoughts on this?
TR: The Karen in this poem is symbolic. I wouldn’t take things too literally, man.
S: Alright, but let me read another one. “I hope you’re all along this Valentine’s, I stopped Karen about you a long time ago. Sorry if I’m being too harsh, but sometimes I just get Karen away.” Now, this one is interesting, because while you don’t call out a Karen in the poem, the name Karen is used twice.
TR: Again, man, you’re being too literal. Karen is a play on words here. It’s a pun. You know, like Karen instead of ‘Caring’ or ‘Carried’. I like my poems to have substance.
S: The recipient of this Anti-Gram was also not named Karen.
TR: Like I said, man. It’s a metaphor.
S: Okay. Allow me to read one more.
TR: Go right ahead.
S: “Karen I still love you,
All my thoughts are dark, Reading through my tears, Everything hurts. Nazis.”
TR: …
S: Now, not only is a Karen mentioned in this poem, but the first letters of each line spell out K-A-R-E-N, and the recipient, for the first time, is one Karen Waterson. Do you know her personally?
TR: No, no, can’t say that I do.
S: Really? Because our sources tell us that the two of you dated for about two months, until recently.
TR: I don’t actually see how that’s relevant, and I’d like to bring the questions back to my business, if you don’t mind.
S: All right, let’s do that. How has business been, Mr. Restrepo?
TR: We are on a huge upswing right now. Anti-Grams is only three weeks old, and we’ve already
sent out thirteen poems. Expansion is rapid. Most of our business is here in PA, but someone order one poem from Kansas City.
S: Which Kansas City?
TR: Missouri.
S: Have any of the other packages been ordered?
TR: Sadly, no. The bouquet and the Big Buyers package are not very popular…also, nine of those thirteen poems were ordered by me.
S: I see.
TR: …
S: …
[At this point in the interview, Mr. Restrepo broke down in tears.]
S: Are you all right, Terry?
TR: I love Karen so much! I just don’t get it! She was alright with me kissing Grace two times, so why was the third such a big deal?
S: …Is there anything else you would like to tell our readers, Terry?
TR: Yes. [sniffling] For more information, please go tohttp://www.pleastakemebackkaren.com.
Happy Valentine’s Day, from The Squirrel.
